NHS probing claims hackers published stolen patient data

NATIONAL Health Service said on Friday it was investigating claims that hackers had published confidential data stolen from several London hospitals in a cyber attack on a blood testing lab.

Services at large London hospitals including Guy's, St Thomas' and King's services were still being disrupted following the attack by hackers reportedly demanding ransom from Synnovis, a lab company that provides testing services, on June 3.

"NHS England has been made aware that the cybercriminal group published data last night which they are claiming belongs to Synnovis and was stolen as part of this attack," the state-run unit said.

"We understand that people may be concerned by this and we are continuing to work with Synnovis, the National Cyber Security Centre and other partners to determine the content of the published files as quickly as possible."

At the affected hospitals, test processing is still at reduced levels and more than 1,000 elective procedures and 2,000 appointments have been cancelled since the incident.

According to the BBC, Russian cybercriminal group Qilin shared almost 400 gigabytes of data – including patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers, and descriptions of blood tests - on their darknet site and Telegram channel.

Spreadsheets containing financial arrangements between hospitals and GP services and Synnovis were also published, the BBC reported.

The hackers have demanded a ransom of £40 million, The Telegraph reports.

Synnovis, in a statement on Friday, said: “We know how worrying this development may be for many people. We are taking it very seriously and an analysis of this data is already underway.” (Agencies)